


Space

by gertrudeabernathy



Series: Keyboard [8]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Absence, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Relationship Negotiation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-06
Updated: 2013-10-06
Packaged: 2017-12-28 14:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/992991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gertrudeabernathy/pseuds/gertrudeabernathy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles is so glad to see Derek after he's been away that it almost hurts - but he doesn't want to be all angsty and crazy about it.</p><p>Derek is pretty glad to be back too - and he is over worrying about how crazy he is about Stiles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Space

**Author's Note:**

> I'm feeling a bit sad and TWless in the hiatus after S3 pt 1 and like everyone, I've been thinking about Stiles missing Derek. This series is more fanonical than canonical though! They are together and the Sheriff knows and is semi-cool with it.

Derek had been away for a while. 

The first night he got back, he went to see Stiles, who had clung tightly onto him, complaining in a whisper.

“I missed you. I couldn’t sleep.”

“You never sleep anyway.”

“Don’t be a jerk. It was bad.”

Derek let him just hold on, till Stiles relaxed a bit. Then Derek squeezed him ridiculously tightly, which made Stiles snigger like a lunatic and bury his face in Derek’s grey sweater.

“Oof!" grunted Stiles, objecting when Derek squeezed him even tighter.

“Serve you right, you octopus.”

“Anyway, you’re back.”

“Yep. I’m back.”

“OK. Shhh now. I’m trying to feel sleepy.”

Derek rolled his eyes. Half an hour later he said good night to the weary-looking sheriff, who was trying to read a closely-typed report in front of the TV, and went home. The theory was that Stiles would at least try to go to sleep early.

The second time Derek saw Stiles after his return was on the next Saturday, a grey, rainy afternoon, and they nearly got into a stupid argument about nothing. Stiles looked pinched when he got to Derek’s place, and said he had a headache, but that he didn’t want Isaac to wolf-mojo it away. Derek thought that was ridiculous.

“What will happen when I have a headache and Isaac isn’t around?” Stiles said. “I don’t want to be a junkie to it.”

“How - what are you talking about? You can’t get addicted to being helped like that.”

“You don’t know that. I bet you have NO IDEA if that is true or not. I should just take an Advil. Do you have any in the bathroom?”

Derek just looked at him.

“All right! I … oh forget it! It’s not even bad enough to worry about, it’s nothing. Let’s watch something.”

But Stiles was restless and couldn’t settle to the movie even though it was good, and after a while Derek paused it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. What do you mean?”

“You are thrashing around and sighing all the time. Are you worried about something?”

“I - no. I’m fine. It’s the headache.”

“I’ll go down the drugstore and get whatever you need. It’s no problem.” Derek stood up.

“No - don’t you go. It’s not even bad - I should probably just go home and try to sleep it off.”

“Have a little nap here on the couch with me.” That suggestion would normally instantly bring Stiles round, have him pushing Derek over so he could fling his lanky self on top of him and snuggle in, but today it failed. Stiles looked resentfully at the spot where he had been sitting.

“No, no, I won’t sleep like that now - I’ll be all sore when I wake up.” 

Derek gripped Stiles by the shoulders gently. “Hey - what is going on with you? Are you getting sick?”

“How would I know that, if I'm not sick yet?” Stiles was really twitchy. “Maybe. I feel a bit off. Sorry. I’m going to go before we get into a fight.”

“What do we have to fight about?” asked Derek, getting annoyed despite himself.

“You’re already mad!” Stiles wailed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me and I don’t know how to not be upset so I am just going to go, OK? And don’t start looking tragic at me, I am FINE.” Stiles almost jerked himself out of Derek's hands, muttering under his breath as he walked away, “Jesus - I’m not allowed to have a fucking headache now?”

“What - allowed?” asked Derek, bewildered. “I don’t know what you are talking about!”

“Don’t listen to me!” said Stiles guiltily, grabbing his jacket and digging for his keys. “I'm being a dick, I have to go.”

And he really went. Derek watched the end of the movie by himself out of sheer confusion.

At eleven that night he decided to run over to the Stilinski house, to burn off a bit of his worry before he got there. The cruiser wasn’t there. He clambered up and tapped on the window for old times’ sake.

Stiles opened up, looking sheepish. “Hop in then.”

“You look a bit better. Are you OK?”

“Yeah… sorry about… you know.”

Derek sat quietly on the end of the bed. “Don’t be. I just didn’t know what to say.”

“Yeah. I’ve worked it out, it’s alright.”

Derek looked questioningly at him. 

“Nah, it was stupid.” Stiles knelt between Derek’s feet, and ran his cool dry hands up Derek’s warm bare legs to his shorts, then held up his face to be kissed. Derek obliged, and then pulled back, quizzical, to search Stiles' face. "Interesting."

"What?" said Stiles.

"I just saw another up-side to us not fucking or doing stuff for another few months. You can’t just derail me when you know there is something you ought to be explaining.” Stiles narrowed his eyes at him, but Derek stared him down till he sighed and gave it up.

“All right - you win, big guy - but it is soooo dumb. Feel free to think I’m ridiculous."

"I always have."

"Asshole. OK. I couldn’t believe it, but I kept feeling kind of angry that you could just go away - and be apart from me for a little while, and I resented it that you didn’t seem to - . I missed you so bad, but I think it’s really psycho to be feeling like you want to forbid someone to go out of your sight, or whatever. So I was mad, but I was ashamed of myself for not being cool about being left alone for a while.“

“Your Dad was here, and Scott!”

“Yes, I know! I said I knew I was being crazy - like some super-needy girlfriend who insists on coming along to poker night, and sits there on the couch, bored, filing her nails or whatever, so she can be sure she knows what her guy is doing every second.”

“Sexist."

“I am talking about a pop-culture stereotype that I refuse to emulate. Anyway, that was it - but it can’t be hurting my feelings, I can’t be - sore - about it - if you have to - or even if you just want to - to go away for a couple of weeks - that’s idiotic! We both have to be free and we both have to have some space - now, and in the future. I’m just adjusting” - and Stiles pushed himself up and perched on Derek’s knee - “to how close we are getting now. It’s all good. I got it.”

“I should have talked more about the trip to you. I would have liked to have given you longer to get used to the idea, but you know. It came up suddenly.”

“Yes. But you aren’t the boss of me, and I am not the boss of you.”

Derek was grinning. “You talk a good game, but I think you might turn out to be the jealous type, if you ever got the chance.”

Stiles pinched him. “Hey! Don't laugh! Jealousy is a very bad thing, you know. And I am determined to be totally reasonable. No fits of temper about nonsense. No crying jags, or throwing drinks.”

Derek murmured mischievously into his neck, “I kind of want you to go back to grabbing me and telling me how bad you missed me.”

“I’m going to puke,” said Stiles, smacking him briskly on the arm. “I think we just became Scott and Allison. Now fuck me, sir, or fuck off out of my window, just as you like. I am a manly man, and I don’t need to have long weepy chats about my feelings. Get yourself under control, and then get your man and yourself off, I say! None of this kissy wissy lovey dovey nonsense for me! Unf.”

The ‘unf’ part was Derek suddenly twining his legs and arms around him and holding Stiles firmly by his jaw, with his head tilted back and to the side. Stiles really couldn’t move anything apart from his hands, although he didn’t get long to experiment with the hold, because Derek was hissing in his ear, “But you never really gave me a chance to complain to you about how much I missed YOU, did you?” He bit hard low on Stiles’ pale exposed throat with his human teeth, which made Stiles gasp, and growled very low into the skin which made Stiles shudder hard, then sucked up a nice neat dark little hickey which forced a stifled cry out of Stiles, who jerked back against Derek’s shoulder. Then Derek licked slowly and soothingly over the mark again and again, tasting, his tongue cool and undemanding, as Stiles alternately pushed back against him and fell forward against Derek’s bracing arms after each soft, wet touch.

(No need for him to mention, then, that up in Oregon, Derek had gone to sleep every night with a stolen undershirt from Stiles’ laundry basket gripped in his hand. Stiles wanted the two of them to be sweet and reasonable, not crazy and possessive - and Derek wasn't going to argue with him when he was all happy. And fuck, Stiles really smelt happy - content - like this... Derek wondered idly if he could somehow find a way to take the shirt Stiles was wearing now with him when he left, without Stiles knowing or making a fuss about it. He would quite like to sleep out in the woods tonight, half-shifted maybe, with the collar of it in his mouth, so he could drown in that ravishing scent, and taste in his sleep that faint, faint tang of Stiles’ blood in his sweat… and then maybe suck on it and tear it and come all over it, out there in the starlight, growling and thrashing - in a completely sane, reasonable way, of course...)


End file.
